AMERICA RECYCLES DAY AT EMORY POINT
Have you ever been to a drive-through for recycling your unwanted items? Probably not.
CDC's lackluster annual recycling event regularly had low employee engagement and as I sought to re-imagine this event, I never expected it to grow into what it has become today.
Inconvenience is one of the largest barriers to recycling. Because of this, I sought out local community community partners, Emory University and Emory Point, to expand the scale of CDC’s historical recycling event and changed the event location to make it more accessible. Emory Point, located across the street from CDC and adjacent to Emory, was the perfect location to create a convenient, efficient, drive-through recycling event for hard-to-recycle materials.
As the cars rolled in, volunteers unloaded the cars and sorted recyclables in the appropriate bins. Collected recyclables included items such as: paint, plastic bags, lightbulbs, electronic waste, batteries, tires, and more. During the 2016 America Recycles Day event, we hosted The MAZE Project — an interactive maze constructed out of recyclables, created and installed by Georgia State University art students, to raise awareness about the value of recycling.
2016 and 2017 “America Recycles Day” events were more successful than we anticipated, and our 2016 event won an HHS Green Champions Award for Environmental Stewardship. The greatest sense of accomplishment came with this project when I saw how can idea can live past its creator. Emory Point still hosts America Recycles Day and it has become a recognized community event in the Clifton-Corridor.
IMPACT
The 2016 event recycled 8,000 pounds of electronic waste and 10 truckloads of households items.
The 2017 event recycled 10 tons of materials, the equivalent of about 5.5 Honda CR-Vs.